A light agenda for the Arcata City Council last night resulted in the council being sympathetic to a guy with a janky backflow-prevention device. They also received an update on the city’s outdated tourism-focused website and its rental properties code-compliance program, both of which are humming along apace. 

BACKFLOW DEVICE

Bob Figas is the owner of a parcel at 4600 West End Road with a janky backflow prevention assembly. It failed an annual test in February, and despite the city telling him to get it fixed, it apparently still doesn’t work right. It sounds wonkish, but it’s an important piece of equipment: the out-of-operation assembly could let large amounts of sediment into the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District’s supply. 

Last month, the council granted a 30-day extension to the deadline on repairing the assembly after Figas told them he’d have it fixed shortly. Figas said last month that he was having issues finding a plumber with the correct tools for the job. The city sent him multiple notices declaring that a nuisance existed on his property (three of them since February) to no avail. The question the council had to decide was whether they would abate Figas — use city time and money to fix it, and recoup the losses by putting a lien on the property — or end the process altogether and forget about it. 

Figas told the council that the parts were scheduled to arrive today, May 21; a representative from Arcata’s street and utilities division said Figas had sent him screenshots of his orders proving as much. 

The council decided on a third option, on the Director of Community Development David Loya’s recommendation: it continued the hearing to the next meeting in two weeks. If Figas is still out of compliance, they’ll bring the hammer down. 

RENTAL PROPERTIES PROGRAM 

Joe Bishop, the city’s building official, presented an update on Arcata’s rental property inspection program, which aims to address substandard slumlord housing rife with building code infractions. It’s now in its third year, and though Bishop said it’s working swimmingly — code enforcement complaints are “almost nonexistent,” he said — it’ll need some tweaking. 

As it currently stands, every landlord renting out a property long-term in city limits (with some exceptions) has to snag both a business license and a rental license, pay fees for both, and pay fees to the city to register with the inspection program and to have their property inspected. It’s quite a few hurdles to jump over, and it’s complex. Add in a voluntary self-certification program on top of that with different rules (pay a different fee, have your properties inspected every five years instead of every three), and clearing those barriers gets irksome. The system needs an overhaul, Bishop said, and on top of that, all of those fees aren’t even paying for the cost of the program: it only makes $31,000 annually, and it needs $115,000. 

Bishop pitched a few ideas to raise revenue. Making landlords pay the registration fee ($20) per unit, instead of per parcel, will immediately add $20,000 to the budget; consolidating the inspection and registration fees and bumping them to $100 per unit (or $50 for the self-certification program, which necessitates fewer mandatory inspections) will make the program self-sustaining. The council favored that option over a few other, more confusing options. Bishop noted that the proposed fees, though higher than they used to be (the average landlord would pay $100 annually for their participation in the program, instead of the current $45), it’s still quite a bit cheaper than Santa Rosa’s rental inspection program, which charges a $175 annual registration fee and a $145 inspection charge.  

Bishop also said he was working to develop a layer on Arcata’s GIS system that would allow rental tenants to check their inspection status. 

Bishop said he’d come back to the council in a few weeks with a draft of an updated ordinance.

NIFTY NEW WEBSITE

A few months ago, the council decided that its website for driving tourism, VisitArcata.com, was out-of-date and needed a revamp.

“We’d keep it fresh and up-to-date,” the Arcata Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Director Meredith Maier told the Outpost at the time. “…The site, as it is now, is not dynamic, it is not something tourists are obviously going to because we’re the ones that are fielding the calls from people that are coming to town.”

She updated the council on the Chamber’s proposal for an updated site, which is definitely more eye-catching. (Although it’s still a draft, the URL was visible during the presentation, and the site is publicly accessible. Check it out here: https://visitarcatatest.squarespace.com) 

[UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: The site is now password-protected. Also, to be clear, the Arcata City Council hasn’t officially contracted with the Chamber to do this work, yet — the Chamber is sort of working on spec, here. The Outpost has altered the language in the paragraph above to make that more apparent.]

Maier showed off its capabilities, the most noteworthy of which allow visitors to cycle through a few itineraries for their trips to town, plug in their own preferences, and then see how Google Maps wants them to hit everything in one go. 

Interested in having the perfect Arcata day? Spending a few days out-and-about hiking? Partying through Oysterfest? The updated site will tell you how to do all that — and more. 

The council members seemed stoked on the idea. 

“I’m a teacher, and in the summer, I get to have these perfect days,” Councilmember Sarah Schaefer said. “And I always think, like, ‘Guys, I just had the perfect day in Arcata. I want to tell somebody! I want somebody to plan it on a website!’ And so — this is it. That’s that tool for it.”